Fox News Poll: Voters reveal which state they want kicked out of the union

Jan. 6, 2006: The U.S. Capitol Building is seen from a U.S. military helicopter in Washington.
(Reuters)

There’s lots of talk about it. Last month, Scotland voted against it. In 2013, some residents in California, Colorado and Maryland signed petitions to do it. And Texas has toyed with the idea off and on for years. What is “it”?

Secession!

But it’s a lot more talk than anything else, according to a Fox News national poll that asked voters if they would support their state splitting off from the United States. Just nine percent said they would.

The poll also gave people another option: What if you could boot other states out of the union?

Nearly twice as many -- 17 percent -- liked that idea.

Which state would be the first voted out? California. Of the voters willing to ditch a state or two, 53 percent pick the Golden State.

Next out the door is New York (25 percent), followed by Texas (20 percent) and Florida (11 percent). Respondents were allowed to name multiple states they wanted out of the union.

Democratic pollster Chris Anderson says voters who want to kick out a state appear to have presidential politics in mind.

“The top four states targeted for expulsion,” he observed, “are also the four most electorally rich states in the country.” Anderson conducts the Fox News poll with Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who for his part approvingly noted the first two states on the chopping block are solid blue.

One reason more Democratic states end up on the chopping block is Republicans (21 percent) are more likely than Democrats (13 percent) to want to vote a state out of the union.

In addition, Republicans (12 percent) and independents (13 percent) are three times as likely as Democrats (4 percent) to want their state to secede. Nearly one in four voters who are part of the Tea Party movement would vote for their state to split off (23 percent).

The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 1,049 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from September 28-30, 2014. The full poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.